Editing is a powerful tool for tweaking emotions. A good editor can take terrible footage and make it into an amazing film, with a slate of tricks that the editing suite provides.

To do this of course, you need the proper editing tool. In the past, editing was done manually, directly with film. This has changed drastically however with the advent of (quick, guess….) the personal computer. Unfortunately, most of the professional level editing software is still out of reach to independents – however there are free alternatives.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be posting reviews of each of the programs on this list of freeware and/or open source editing software (if the program provides the necessary functionality to edit a clip).

I’ll get archival footage off of Archive.org and music from CChits. Using these, I’ll compare the software to see how similar each program is based on a number of factors such as ease of speed-up/slow-down of footage, splitting footage, repositioning footage, inserting audio seperate from video, removing pre-existing audio from a video clip, etc – all basic functions that editing software should have.

I’ll try to do at least one of these reviews a week, and hopefully after it’s all over we’ll have a better idea of the quality that’s out there in free editing software.